Calvinism Defended:
Degrees of Freedom and "Resisting and Rejecting" the Spirit of Grace
By
This is the 17th section of the e-mail exchange I had with Bill, an individual who objected to Calvinism. Click here to go back to the table of contents, or here to go to the full 88 page exchange.
Bill Writes: I don’t have infinite freewill, but I have more degrees of freedom than someone in a wheel chair, a hospital bed, or a prison or who is a addicted to drugs or to pornography or gambling. However, everyone has the freedom as spiritual beings created in the image of God to synergistically yield to God’s grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ by the Spirit of Grace. They also have the “freewill” to resist and reject the Spirit of Grace. You do it every day when you sin.
My Response: I respond to this "piecemeal" below. I quote a portion of what is written above, with my response below that portion.
Bill Wrote: I don’t have infinite freewill, but I have more degrees of freedom than someone in a wheel chair, a hospital bed, or a prison or who is a addicted to drugs or to pornography or gambling.
My Response: Case
in point: you are now qualifying
freewill because you understand that there are limitations.
How is this different from what the Calvinist says?
We say that there are limitations, and the limitation is that we can only
make choices in accordance with our nature.
We make choices according to the strongest desire at the moment.
And thus, we say that people always get precisely what they want, and
this is the essence of freewill.
You then
confuse freewill with natural ability…the issue is not about the difference
between a person who can walk, and one in wheel chair, etc.
We are talking about the moral ability of man to obey the command to
repent and receive Christ. Every person, regardless of whether they are in a wheel
chair, hospital bed, or prison, etc., is in the same spiritual condition:
dead in trespasses and sin, and unless they are made alive by the Spirit
of God, they will never come to Christ (John 1:12-13; 3:3; 6:37-44; Eph 2:1).
The confusion in your analogy demonstrates, to me anyway, that you simply
have not studied the issues thoroughly or carefully enough.
Bill
Wrote: However, everyone has the
freedom as spiritual beings created in the image of God to synergistically yield
to God’s grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ by the Spirit of Grace.
My
Response: There
are many things that can be said. Many
Calvinists make a distinction between natural and moral ability.
Man, because he is a rational, thinking creature, certainly has the
natural ability to understand what is being said.
The problem is that he is a sinner, and as such he is, as Jesus said, a
slave to sin. Because of this, he
is unable to “synergistically yield to God’s grace through faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ by the Spirit of Grace.” As
you say, let the inspired apostle speak: “The
natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for
they are foolishness to him; nor
can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
(1 Cor 2:14). And again,
“For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and
peace. 7 Because the
carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law
of God, nor indeed can be.” (Rom 8:6-8), and again, “10 As it
is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one; 11 There is none who
understands; There is none
who seeks after God. 12 They have all turned aside; They have
together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.” (Rom
3:10-12), and again, “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and
sins,” (Eph 2:1).
You
say that everyone has the freedom as spiritual beings to “synergistically”
yield to God’s grace. I suppose
we are just as “free” to “synergistically” work with a cable in pulling
the Empire State Building in NY out of ground.
The question is, do we really have the power to do so.
The answer is no.
One
final point here…I see Jesus saying “All that the Father gives will to come
to Me…” however, I do not see one verse anywhere in Scripture that even
remotely resembles telling unbelievers to “synergistically yield to God’s
grace.”
Bill
Wrote: They also have the
“freewill” to resist and reject the Spirit of Grace.
You do it every day when you sin.
My
Response: The
only thing an unregenerate sinner can freely do is sin.
No one can come to Jesus by the power of their own unregenerate will.
The only thing they can freely choose outside of regeneration is
rejection of Christ and His grace. The
problem that we have prior to regeneration is that we are in bondage to
ourselves (or, as we often say, the world, the flesh, and the devil).
It is God, and God alone, without the help of anyone, who sets us free.
To even suggest that salvation is a synergistic work, where it is both
God and man who work to accomplish it, is completely fallacious, and robs God of
all of the glory that is due to Him for our salvation.
It is, in effect, to make yourself, at the very least, a co-savior with
Christ. That is simply an
inescapable conclusion derived from your position, which, by the way, is the
same position of Rome, the Mormon Church, and every other false religion in the
world. As one who has been
graciously regenerated solely by God’s grace and Spirit working powerfully and
effectively in my life, I will forever ascribe all of the glory to God alone for
my salvation.
As for me still sinning everyday, and resisting and rejecting the “Spirit of Grace,” this is quite true. However, this is in the context of me having already been born again by the Spirit. As a believer, I have been empowered by God’s grace to live the “Christian life,” and God has established certain means to effect my spiritual growth (such as prayer, His Word, the sacraments, fellowship, ministry, etc.). I must make right use of the means of grace in order to grow, and I must be proactive in the pursuit of holiness. However, even in all of that (which is actually the process of sanctification), it is still God who must empower me and ultimately cause me to first of all make right use of the means of grace He has established, and secondly cause me to grow more and more into the image of Christ. As the apostle Paul stated in Phl 2:12-13: “…work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do His good pleasure.” So, ultimately, even sanctification is a monergistic work on the part of God.
I
am commanded to work out my salvation with fear and trembling, and to grow in
the grace and knowledge of Christ. I
must pursue godliness. However, all
of this is done on my part by resting upon the finished work of Christ alone,
and realizing that the only reason I ever make right use of the means of grace
and grow, and produce fruit, is because God has and is working in me both to
will and to do His good pleasure. As
I have asked before, so I will ask again: where
is synergism there, Bill? If it is
God who is working for me to even “will”, what does that say for
“synergism,” even as it relates to sanctification?
Answer: it kind of destroys it. Maybe
you will never come to agree that the Reformed position is correct, but can you
at least see now why some might hold to it?
We are not going into this thing blindly, Bill.
There is an abundance of Scriptural support for what we are saying (I
haven’t even dealt with every passage that I could have, but, if you would
like me to, I have no problem doing that as well.).